In 1945, the world’s first nuclear bomb was tested. Called the ‘Trinity’ bomb, it harnessed the power of Plutonium to generate a fireball. Soon, the ‘Little Boy’ bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing between 90,000 and 160,000 people, mostly civilians. The radioactive fallout was devastating, and thousands died from radiation poisoning.
The term ‘fallout’ refers to the radioactive dust and ash generated by a nuclear explosion that falls out of the sky after the explosion has taken place. Fallout can take the form of simple dust, or can be brought to the ground in the form of ‘black rain,’ or rain darkened by the dust. Once the fallout hits the ground, it can cause either quick death from whole-body radiation poisoning, or a much more prolonged affair, with secondary symptoms such as thyroid or other cancers.
The Pacific Proving Grounds were several sites in the Marshall Islands, used by the United States military to test new bomb technologies. Over 105 nuclear tests took place there between 1946 and 1962, many of which were ‘high yield,’ or tests attempting to maximize the output of the bombs. One instance of this is ‘Operation Crossroads.’ Operation Crossroads consisted of two separate nuclear detonations, one at an altitude several hundred feet above the surface of the water, and another at a depth of 90 feet underwater. The test was designed to learn the effects of nuclear weapons on ships, and a small fleet of WWII ships were used as props.
The result of the second detonation was a massive cloud of heavily radioactive vapor, which spread massive amounts of fallout to the ships, rendering them useless. The ships, in turn were sunk. The Pacific Proving Grounds generated massive amounts of ocean radioactivity, contaminating the ocean for decades. The Caesium 137 generated from this one detonation took 30.17 years to complete one half life. The Cs is still contaminating the ocean today.